Closer
by Green2
Summary: *SLASH* HH/AK There's a reason for Hornblower's distracted behaviour at Muzillac (new link to fanart!)


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CLOSER

By Green

Pairing: Horatio / Archie

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Rating: R or thereabouts

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Warnings: Slash, angst, Mariette is referred to as 'intelligent' which I know may be too much for some people…

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Feedback: green99bottles@aol.com (please, pretty please)

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Spoilers/Continuity: Takes place during 'The Frogs and the Lobsters/The Wrong War', you really need to see that episode before trying to read this

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Disclaimer: I do not own Horatio, Archie, Mariette, Edrington or even Moncountant, which is probably a good thing as I have no free storage space in my house anyway. I make no money out of borrowing them and am in no way connected with their Lord and master, A&E Meridian

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Notes: Finally! After millions of ideas and plot bunnies attacking me ever since I first saw 'The Even Chance' I've managed to track, attack and subdue one and present it stuffed and mounted in the form below. 

H and A's behaviour in 'Frogs../Wrong war' always annoyed me. Archie is uncharacteristically distraught (and this behaviour isn't really explained), Horatio spends all the time moving round and round the French countryside, and not taking much notice of Archie at all. Being a slasher I just can't take Mariette for an answer (though, neither, I understand, can many Gen. Writers). At the same time I didn't want to be misogynistic, which many slash pieces tend towards. I hope that in this piece I have answered these problems successfully and to everyone's (ahem) satisfaction

NEW NOTE: 1st Feb 03: There is now a piece of fanart with this fic, by the truly talented greenlizard (or Lizard, as she is on ff.n - read her Jane Austen stuff!). A very nice CGI inspired by this story. That and her other amazing work can be found at:

www.green-lizard.deviantart.com

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On the Channel, sailing with the French soldiers to Quiberon Bay:

For the third time this week it is an unusually cool night and the stars are shining as always. The wind is moaning in the rigging in the old familiar way, all is usual, all is calm, and yet Archie Kennedy has just kissed him.

Kissed. Him. 

~_ eyes locked to his own, the soft hair suddenly caught in the candlelight, more golden than under the Spanish sun, closer, closer, breathing the same air, warm breath on his lips and suddenly something hotter and wetter and alive and~_

The shock must still be acting on him; the disgust will arrive as soon as he can order his thoughts once more. Gentlemen and officers are placed in the world to keep it virtuous and stop the lower ideas of the masses from ruling. That..*tendency* is not conscionable, not even to be mentioned, the idea of partaking in its acts…

~_sweet breath on his lips, warm, yet his shiver spreads a sensation all over his skin, all over every part of him, closer, closer, then (so soon) the space has gone and they meet, and~_

He grips the side of the boat until his knuckles turn white from effort. Out here on deck it his hard to believe what happened mere minutes ago in his cabin. He will never be able to drink from those glasses again, or sit in that chair, or ever see a face in that glow of a guttering candle…he is not superstitious but he knows that the associations will surely become too painful.

Painful…he rubs the swiftly growing lump on the back of his head. In his haste to stand and be away from there, from _ him _ he had forgotten the beam of the cabin roof. The knock had brought smarting tears to his eyes and so he has no idea how Kennedy reacted. And why does that matter anyway? He should not think of it, should not be concerned, should * not * consider anything else he could have said or done in that situation. He must be strong, possibly even forgiving…he must not dwell upon it, he must not…

~_closer, closer, closer and every nerve screaming to be touched, the candlelight shines through golden hair, breathing and living and warm and * Archie * and maybe a hand is his own hair, all senses mad and that soft, nervous smile closer, closer, and~_

He wants to cry and wail like the wind, but instead everything seems to catch up with him at once and he is violently sick. It is good, the nausea will not let him think or feel anything else.

It still in some ways amazes me how my life was able to rush on, with or without my permission. I felt myself to be in a storm of confusion, nothing was as it had been, the world was irrevocably changed. But everyone else on the ship, save, of course, one other, went on in their calm and seemed as uncaring as the ever-cycling sun. I could not look at Kennedy, could not be next to him and make us both burn in the memory of the night. Avoiding him, however, only made me twice as aware of his presence, and anyhow we were to go ashore together, operate together, we must talk and must do so as we ever had done.

How had we once conversed though? One cannot fake the ease I seemed to remember in his company, and suddenly there was nothing that could be safely said any more. 

'Archie!' I called too loudly across the French beach, 'How does it feel to be back on this side of the channel?'

He looked at me in total bewilderment for a second, then, collecting himself, made a commonplace reply of no interest or real meaning, intending to end the conversation.

'Better with a pistol and cannon to hand' 

The image must have occurred to us both simultaneously, because as I coloured and looked away, so did he. What had he brought me to? With what pollution had this man despoiled my mind? As he looked up so did I and, against my will, our eyes met for the first time since… his were red-rimmed now, and dark, bruise-like smudges hung beneath them.

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~eyes smiling like his mouth, pupils larger even than the dim light would make them, blue and deep, lashes delicate as the wing of a butterfly, closer, closer, now shutting, the world is briefly dark and then, and then~

I thanked God when Edrington rode up to speak, for had that moment continued I must have spoken, and I knew not what folly or curse might have passed my lips. Edrington, the Soldier, the Earl, the Gentleman. He would not harbour dark desires, would not take a friendship and besmirch it with foul imaginings, sinful gestures. I was glad to ride with him and doubly glad that our orders would separate me from Kennedy for most of the next few days. I looked forward to entering Muzillac, to behaving once more with honour, to deeds of the bright fresh air and sunshine, not those hidden by the night.

That night found me encamped in the village that had been the enemy, protecting a girl's honour from the very troops I was helping. And worrying at the ease with which I protected her from myself.

When first I saw Mariette my mind told me she was beautiful, just as I might think the same of a painting or landscape. Within hours I realised that she was brave, intelligent and in need of protection. 'This', said my mind at dinner, 'is how the world may work. She is woman, you are man, thus you were created and thus may you create. The order of things dictates it so'

But Moncoutant too, believed he had the order of things. Until that day I had vaguely subscribed to the ideas of divine right, of the peasant and the Lord, of the unchanging order. Ideas and practice, were, I gradually realised, often separated by too many deaths.

I did not heed my doubts. I had found the 'right' path and I must take it, and she, poor thing, was happy to guide me along. When we stood facing each other she reached up to kiss me. Surely with a woman it would be perfect? Whatever I imagined I had felt with…the last time, that would surely pale besides this? I put my mouth to hers, and it seemed to me that we chewed almost at each other for a few moments. She put her hand on the back of my neck and I tentatively placed mine on her shoulder. We parted and I could feel saliva on my lip, cold and faintly unpleasant. Perhaps these gestures could be as beautiful as dance steps, but I did not know them, and I felt as ungainly as if I had tripped over my own feet.

She was kind, and lovely. She was willing and eager and when I asked her if I could stay to protect her I believed I was equally so. But something in me, I called it my honour, made me tell her I should stay in the chair to keep watch. 

'We will have another time.'

She slept, but I remained awake until almost dawn. I waited to be haunted by her embrace, to regret my decision to preserve her honour and then in true honourable manner myself be comforted that I did what was right. But I felt like a spy or a thief in her house. I brought to mind the kisses we had shared, and tried to feel the great emotions of love and desire coursing through me. I pictured her face, and then…

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~longer, blonder hair, glowing in the light, tongue slips out, just the tip, to moisten the elegant lips and something about that gesture sends a bolt through the stomach and down, hot and sharp and perfect and closer and closer and heart beating, breathing deep, closer, and meeting and~

I felt a sudden sharp quiver between my legs. It was painful and pleasant all at once and I walked over to her bedside on an equally sudden urge.

'Horatio?'

She must not have been as deeply asleep as I imagined. I kneeled next to her and opened my mouth to say some words that would be suitable, 'I would lie with you', 'I would share with you', 'Would you…?', 'I now regret what I said earlier'. No words came, however

'Are you cold over there, Horatio?'

The easiest invitation in the world to accept. But to my surprise I found that the reason that had brought me to her bedside had disappeared, and I merely murmured some excuse and went back to the hard wooden seat. 

This time I let myself fall into sleep. I defied my subconscious – I would not feel myself responsible for what I already knew I would dream…

~++**++~

My actions that night characterise all my time at Muzillac. I ran away continually. To Edrington, the noble male friend, to Mariette, the suitable female lover, from one to the other I flitted and each time my continuing discontent made me move on. The fact that we were under attack by the Republican Army, or at least a part of it, merely facilitated my movements.

Kennedy did not ask where I was going each time I ran from him. 

'Stay out of sight and they cannot touch you', were my only words of comfort, and his eyes lit with some kind of bitter understanding. He was right, that philosophy was covering many aspects of my life that day. In the daylight and the heat of battle, so like so many we had been through together, I had to continually check myself to remember that all was changed and destroyed. He seemed distraught, and I wondered at what, for I knew him well enough to know he did not jump at musket-fire. Then I stopped wondering – the answers were not to be borne and the idea itself provoked an unwelcome desire to go back and help and heal him as I always had before. He looked so alone, somehow, standing with his arms hugged around him, looking away into the future or the past. 

'A fine thing, to die in someone else's war', he had said. 

'A fine thing to die' would now have been my answer, a fine thing to die and be done with the confusion and the mess of it all. Yet I only brought death to others that day. Moncoutant's beliefs, and my own (though it pains me, I know they were not dissimilar) had been as deadly as if we had simply walked into that place and shot them down as one mows wheat.

'I will not leave without you!'

She might have lived, if she'd stayed. She had done no evil to the Republicans. But I forced her to come, one last desperate attempt to lock myself safely into rules and regulations. To imprison us into lawful marriage where we would both soon realise I had nothing to give her. The next is all a blur…I ran, she ran, then suddenly she ran no more and the angel that had come for her instead called me and pulled me from the brink of oblivion. I did not even need to look to know that it was him. Kennedy. * Archie*

~++**++~

Time has a habit of slowing as you run for your very life. They say your life flashes before you, but I was only aware of certain things…

…a look, some words, 'Welcome to Purgatory'…

…a cut rope, and it feels as though every warm thing in me has sailed away with that boat…

…a Spanish prison cell, his feverish face next to mine, the trust in his eyes as he takes the cup and drinks for the first time…

…words, looks, jokes, smiles, kindnesses, teases, all the minutiae of friendship, of affection… 

…a shaking body, safe in my arms…

and then

~_closer, closer, closer, hot, burning, racing blood and a fiery ache in my chest and meeting and meeting, and that tongue and his mouth and closer, please, please, closer and for one second I sprawl against him and something rubs somewhere and God, and God and~_

I am crying for her still, for my folly in forcing her to come with me as a guard forever on my actions, but I am crying also because I am alive, and * he * is alive and despite all the madness and evil around us I find I need no more than that. His arm is warm around my shoulder, and I know now that nothing has changed, because it always felt this way, it is only now that I know why, and what it is called. 

Love. I mean to say it to him a great deal, and what's more I mean to show him.

~++**++~

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End file.
